Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Timo Korhonen via Core-talk <core-talk at aps.anl.gov> · Wed, 17 Mar 2021 08:23:26 +0000

The "good" thing about being in this business is that you never run out of work to do...run to stay where you are.

If the hooks are there (in PVA), I guess we should go for it sooner than later. However, it seems that many things have still to happen outside EPICS before we can use IPv6 universally.
CA on IPv6 looks too steampunk for me but if people want...

This afternoon we will have again a meeting about authentication and remote access. I have to repeat again the same message of being on a trusted network and so on.
I know the reasons...but (my) life would be just a little bit easier if those arguments would not be necessary.

Timo

On 16/03/21 20:04, "Core-talk on behalf of Michael Davidsaver via Core-talk" <core-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov on behalf of core-talk at aps.anl.gov> wrote:

    Personally, I see IPv6 as one of several "modernization" requirements
    which seem likely drop at some point within say 5 years.

    The biggest one being something along the lines of "all network services
    must employ strong authentication and encryption".  I expect that the
    continuing drumbeat of headlines about PLC security problems will at
    some point spill over into the EPICS world in a way which makes arguing
    for exemptions untenable.

    Our community can either be proactive, or wait to be surprised.

    On 3/16/21 11:33 AM, Johnson, Andrew N. via Core-talk wrote:
    > On Mar 16, 2021, at 4:32 AM, Ben Franksen <benjamin.franksen at helmholtz-berlin.de> wrote:
    >>
    >> Am 16.03.21 um 09:44 schrieb Zimoch Dirk (PSI) via Core-talk:
    >>> On Fri, 2021-03-12 at 03:34 +0000, Johnson, Andrew N. via Core-talk wrote:
    >>>> https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/M-21-07.pdf
    >>>>
    >>>> - Andrew
    >>>>
    >>>
    >>> TL;DR
    >>> Do we have a problem?
    >>
    >> I may be wrong, but AFAIU only facilities in the US have a problem. They
    >> need to convince their over-bosses that they get an exception.
    > 
    > Sorry, but if we don’t consider how we can add support for IPv6 soon EPICS will probably no longer be eligible for use by the kinds of large experimental facilities that have funded its development to date, and it will die. I’m not saying it’s urgent, but we should start to plan for it.
    > 
    > That OMB memo was signed by the previous US administration, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t developed by their political appointees, and IMHO hoping that the new administration will rescind it would be a mistake. Existing DOE facilities will almost certainly be getting exemptions of some kind, but EPICS doesn’t have a monopoly in this field and if we don’t support it many future Government-funded projects will have to find an alternative since IPv6-only networking will most likely become a non-negotiable requirement at some point. This isn’t likely to be unique to the US either.
    > 
    > IPv6 use has been growing and many cellphone networks now depend on it (that DJB article which Ben found has a last-modified date of August 2003). There’s a page with links to several adoption statistics websites at
    >     https://www.internetsociety.org/deploy360/ipv6/statistics/
    > 
    > I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get some DOE funding to actually do the porting work. Given the number of DOE facilities that use EPICS it seemed reasonable to suggest that, which I have done to the team that is planning the DOE’s response to that memo.
    > 
    > - Andrew
    > 

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System